WTF with Marc Maron Podcast Transcripts

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Episode 347 - Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder

Episode 347 • Released December 26, 2012 • Speakers detected

Episode 347 artwork
00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!
00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?
00:00:08Guest:Really?
00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.
00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?
00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.
00:00:12Guest:Pow!
00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?
00:00:14Guest:WTF?
00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?
00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF?
00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?
00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.
00:00:24Marc:All right, let's do this.
00:00:25Marc:How are you?
00:00:26Marc:What the fuckers?
00:00:26Marc:What the fuck buddies?
00:00:27Marc:What the fucking ears?
00:00:28Marc:What the fucking isms?
00:00:30Marc:What the fucksters?
00:00:31Marc:I think what the fucking isms is good.
00:00:33Marc:What the fuck miss?
00:00:34Marc:Happy what the fuck miss again.
00:00:36Marc:So it's the 27th.
00:00:39Marc:It's that weird middle.
00:00:40Marc:Did I mention I'm Mark Maron?
00:00:41Marc:This is WTF.
00:00:42Marc:Did I mention I owe a big thanks to Comedy Central for being a big supporter of WTF in 2012?
00:00:48Marc:Speaking of Comedy Central.
00:00:51Marc:Dr. Katz Professional Therapist was a show on Comedy Central.
00:00:55Marc:I believe I was on there twice.
00:00:57Marc:I'd like to think twice.
00:00:58Marc:It might have just been once.
00:00:59Marc:It was a very exciting day for me to finally get that gig when I was a younger comic and drive to Newton from Boston.
00:01:07Marc:Drive the full 12 minutes to Newton and get in that studio in hopes and anticipation of being squiggle visioned.
00:01:16Marc:And I was thrilled.
00:01:18Marc:It was a big break and I love Jonathan.
00:01:21Marc:He and Tom Snyder are here to talk about their new thang explosion bus.
00:01:27Marc:I hope you're all making it through the holidays.
00:01:28Marc:I know a lot of you are avoiding me until you get back.
00:01:32Marc:I don't know why I could be I could throw you a line.
00:01:36Marc:I could be I could help you.
00:01:39Marc:But, you know, if you want to listen later, that's fine.
00:01:42Marc:I'm dealing with my own shit over here.
00:01:44Marc:You know, it's a it's an interesting and and difficult thing sometimes.
00:01:50Marc:The holidays.
00:01:52Marc:Am I right?
00:01:54Marc:There's something about that Christmas Eve thing.
00:01:56Marc:You know, I had a wonderful Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, the Eve before Christmas.
00:02:00Marc:Went over to my buddy Al Madrigals and spent some time with his family and some other comics, Kevin Christie, Brendan Walsh, and the like, Bill Burr.
00:02:10Marc:We had a nice chat.
00:02:11Marc:Jake Johansson was there.
00:02:14Marc:Got in a little chatty circle of comics going over the thing.
00:02:18Marc:The who?
00:02:19Marc:Who's what?
00:02:20Marc:What happened to him?
00:02:21Marc:No shit.
00:02:22Marc:That guy did that?
00:02:23Marc:How much did you get ripped off for?
00:02:25Marc:Really?
00:02:25Marc:That dude stole that?
00:02:27Marc:Oh, fuck.
00:02:28Marc:Yeah, I never liked that guy anyways.
00:02:30Marc:I hope he's all right.
00:02:32Marc:So where are you going to be?
00:02:33Marc:Oh, how'd you get that gig?
00:02:35Marc:Oh, tell us about that, that time.
00:02:37Marc:How many years ago was that?
00:02:38Marc:Holy fuck, it's weird how old we are now.
00:02:40Marc:I just summed it up for you.
00:02:42Marc:Oh, wait, I forgot one.
00:02:43Marc:Yeah, not really my thing.
00:02:44Marc:I never really thought he was that funny.
00:02:45Marc:I mean, people like him.
00:02:48Marc:Is that it?
00:02:48Marc:Is that all of it?
00:02:52Marc:Me and Bill Burr almost got into some sort of argument about...
00:02:58Marc:About Led Zeppelin for no reason.
00:03:01Marc:He brought up something like he was watching some YouTube thing.
00:03:03Marc:We were talking about Zeppelin.
00:03:04Marc:I was talking about records.
00:03:06Marc:He's a drummer.
00:03:07Marc:We're thinking about playing a little together.
00:03:09Marc:Just me and him, Black Key style, I think is the plan at this point, if it does happen.
00:03:14Marc:But he said he saw some YouTube videos that show that...
00:03:18Marc:Zeppelin stole some shit from their opening acts.
00:03:20Marc:And I'm like, come on, that music evolves.
00:03:22Marc:Music is music.
00:03:24Marc:You know, I don't know if you could look at it as stealing.
00:03:26Marc:And he goes, no, man, that's some Mencia shit.
00:03:28Marc:And I'm like, wait a minute.
00:03:29Marc:It's music.
00:03:30Marc:It's Zeppelin.
00:03:31Marc:I'm sure they didn't do the exact same thing.
00:03:32Marc:He's like, look, you know, I've had a couple of beers.
00:03:35Marc:And I don't think we need to go any further with this conversation.
00:03:40Marc:And I'm like, all right.
00:03:42Marc:And then he says a couple of seconds later, he goes, I just want you to know that was a very mature thing, a very mature decision I just made.
00:03:49Marc:I love...
00:03:50Marc:You know, when you get to a certain point, if you're a certain type of dude, myself included, when you get a little self-awareness, you just want to make sure that everybody's aware that you're self-aware and that you made a choice in a moment where you might not have made one before and caused a lot of bullshit.
00:04:09Marc:That is some serious growth, people.
00:04:12Marc:It's a funny moment, man.
00:04:14Marc:So Christmas Eve was a little dicey, you know, because I'm here with Jess and, you know, we both have our own family shit and you get a little nostalgic for what you had or what you didn't have and feelings run deep.
00:04:26Marc:It's a little heavy, man.
00:04:27Marc:It's a heavy night if you're not surrounded by people and a tree and a fireplace and a sweater and all that other bullshit and expectations and you're just kind of hanging out wondering what everyone else is doing.
00:04:38Marc:And as a Jew, that's a weird night because you're like, well, this is that night.
00:04:41Marc:But there's a...
00:04:42Marc:a density to it a depth to the to the sort of uh quietude of uh of christmas night and we were managing pretty good and then something tipped the scales we ended up having some sort of bullshit fight over whatever and you know i i tried to do the right thing to make the mature choice and
00:05:04Marc:Stepped outside.
00:05:05Marc:Granted, I stepped outside with the intention of leaving my own house, which is always a fucking don't don't tell her.
00:05:12Marc:But that's always bullshit.
00:05:13Marc:Like, I'm fucking out of here.
00:05:15Marc:So I'm going to leave my house.
00:05:17Marc:Where am I going to go?
00:05:18Marc:So I did that and I stood outside and went to the bottom of the driveway and everything was completely quiet.
00:05:23Marc:And I heard a sound that I've only heard once in my life that confirmed some of my deeper fears about something.
00:05:32Marc:I heard a pack of coyotes up on the hill somewhere.
00:05:36Marc:And I don't know if you've ever heard that.
00:05:37Marc:And if you haven't, it's a very frightening, sort of chaotic kind of canine chatter.
00:05:43Marc:It doesn't sound like dogs, really.
00:05:45Marc:And it definitely sounds like they're almost speaking a language.
00:05:48Marc:There's a horrible kind of dog-like chattering going on.
00:05:53Marc:And you don't know what they're doing.
00:05:55Marc:I don't know what they're doing.
00:05:56Marc:I'm sure someone knows what they're doing.
00:05:57Marc:I'm sure someone who has studied coyotes know what they're doing.
00:06:00Marc:I mean, my in my darker thoughts, I imagine they're they're celebrating.
00:06:04Marc:They're dancing around the corpse of someone's pet before they eat it.
00:06:08Marc:But they're out there and I know they're out there.
00:06:10Marc:I heard that sound once up on the hills in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
00:06:13Marc:Didn't know what it was.
00:06:14Marc:It woke me up.
00:06:15Marc:It almost sounded like a speeded up tape.
00:06:18Marc:of a bunch of dogs barking, like something played at 45.
00:06:23Marc:It's kind of a horrendous frequency, but they're out there.
00:06:28Marc:So I was out there taking a break from a fight that was bullshit, listening to the wild, listening to the wild, the sounds of the wild, the intensity and reality of the wild.
00:06:40Marc:Kind of brought me down a notch, man.
00:06:42Marc:I went back in and
00:06:44Marc:You know, begged for mercy, for forgiveness, for Christmas.
00:06:48Marc:You know, let me give you the gift of I'm sorry on this on this holy night.
00:06:54Marc:We pulled it together.
00:06:55Marc:We went to bed, got up, still a little tense in the air, felt that felt the tension of sadness.
00:07:04Marc:and difficulty of relationships in my guts.
00:07:07Marc:And I don't do this all the time, but I came right out here to the fucking garage on Christmas morning.
00:07:12Marc:I plugged in my Les Paul TV Jr.
00:07:14Marc:and I got it a little dirty and I put on some Peter Green Fleetwood Mac and I jammed my fucking balls off in the deepest way I'd ever jammed in my life.
00:07:24Marc:Nobody was there to witness it.
00:07:27Marc:Maybe somebody heard it.
00:07:28Marc:Maybe somebody across the way.
00:07:30Marc:I picture maybe a Latino family a few doors down the hill were opening presents and heard me screaming on my yellow guitar the sound of a frustrated, heart-wrenched man mixing with all that Jesus and candy and smells of pork cooking.
00:07:49Marc:Just a thin blues riff coming down the hill.
00:07:53Marc:Just a little underneath...
00:07:56Marc:The singing on the CD player, Silent Night, perhaps in Spanish.
00:08:02Marc:I'd like to think of it as in Spanish.
00:08:05Marc:Maybe I brought some joy or at least a different tone to someone's Christmas morning down the hill coming out of my garage just to like, what is that?
00:08:20Marc:What is that?
00:08:21Marc:And the same way I reacted to those coyotes.
00:08:23Marc:What is that?
00:08:23Marc:I know that sound.
00:08:26Marc:And after I played blues, we went and made up.
00:08:29Marc:We pulled it together.
00:08:30Marc:We're closer than ever.
00:08:32Marc:Today.
00:08:33Marc:Merry Christmas.
00:08:35Marc:Merry Christmas.
00:08:39Marc:I'll be at the Improv in the Hard Rock, Fork Lauderdale, Florida, where my mommy lives down there in Fort Lauderdale area.
00:08:47Marc:Fourth, fifth, and sixth of January there with the Improv with Mike Lawrence.
00:08:51Marc:The following weekend, 10th, 11th, and 12th, I'll be at Good Nights in Raleigh, North Carolina with Ryan Singer, Mike Lawrence in Florida, Ryan Singer in North Carolina.
00:08:59Marc:On the 13th, I'll be here in Pasadena at the Ice House for one of those hour jam sessions.
00:09:05Marc:with a few other comics who I better book soon.
00:09:08Marc:God, I'm an idiot.
00:09:09Marc:I should book those, right?
00:09:10Marc:I should ask people if they want to come.
00:09:12Marc:What else is going on?
00:09:13Marc:February 8th at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, a live WTF and a live stand-up show.
00:09:19Marc:That's happening.
00:09:21Marc:that's going to be good on that show so far uh i've got sue costello i've got gary goleman i've got joe wong i've got rich jenkins i've got the mythic and infamous dj hazard who was one of the first comics i ever saw live in college looking forward to him also uh hoping for one more act there and we'll see we'll see what i come up with i'm still working on that but that'll be fun man yes it will
00:09:46Marc:Let's talk to Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder about Dr. Katz Professional Therapist and about their new project, Explosion Bus.
00:10:00Marc:I like old things.
00:10:01Marc:That tube amp, there seems to be a nostalgia thing that I'm after.
00:10:04Marc:I don't know what it is.
00:10:06Marc:I don't know what I'm chasing.
00:10:07Marc:I decided I needed tubes and I needed to play my records because there's integrity to them.
00:10:12Marc:Authenticity.
00:10:13Marc:How are your tubes?
00:10:15Marc:My tubes are okay.
00:10:16Marc:The ones inside of me, I don't know.
00:10:17Marc:I need to get them checked.
00:10:20Marc:I should get checked my tubes, but the tubes on that amp are good.
00:10:23Marc:i have an old scott preamp which is i was about to throw it out and somebody said don't i almost bought one of those yeah it's beautiful with tubes yeah and do you use it for records no i use it it's in my audio museum oh yeah what else you got in there
00:10:38Guest:I have something called an L cassette, which was a stage in between the reel-to-reel and the cassette.
00:10:46Guest:Something called an L cassette, where the cassettes were about this big.
00:10:49Guest:Yeah.
00:10:50Guest:Never really caught on.
00:10:51Guest:The size of reels, basically.
00:10:54Marc:Well, I'm with Tom Snyder's here and Jonathan Katz.
00:10:58Marc:and we have a lot to talk about i think i should talk to uh both of you but i mean there's some things i want to talk to to jonathan about before you guys got together uh you know you were you know we knew each other in boston great you were a comedian and are a comedian true you did stand-up comedy but i have to say a real hero no i i i would agree with that
00:11:20Guest:That's just my new comedic stance.
00:11:24Guest:I'm no hero.
00:11:25Marc:That's your hook?
00:11:26Marc:Yeah.
00:11:26Marc:Don't look to me to lead.
00:11:28Marc:I'm just trying to get by.
00:11:29Guest:No, I saw a kid, Newton.
00:11:31Guest:Yeah.
00:11:32Guest:Not a kid.
00:11:33Guest:What I actually mean by a kid is an elderly woman.
00:11:35Guest:Sure.
00:11:36Guest:Yeah.
00:11:36Guest:Who is trapped between a bus and the jaws of life.
00:11:41Guest:Yeah.
00:11:42Guest:Oh, no.
00:11:42Guest:Come on.
00:11:43Guest:And I happen to have a breath mint.
00:11:45Guest:Yeah.
00:11:45Marc:i'm sorry this story's not going anywhere i'm not a hero you're doing you're going to do some uh some jokes no but i mean what what year was that 1989 or 88 i lived there so where did you start doing comedy where did you come from why why you know why were you there i started doing
00:12:00Guest:comedy in new york in 1981 when there were not so many jokes yeah but back in the day when there was only seven or eight jokes that's right and you were trying to invent something right but i i came from the world of music i had a band called cats and jammers i saw the album in there yeah and i have two copies we signed one i want to keep one clean thank you absolutely and cats and jammers yeah what was it was all original music yeah it was a comedy songs not intentionally
00:12:30Guest:I always describe us as mediocre.
00:12:33Guest:Uh-huh.
00:12:34Guest:But we did rhythm and blues, country and western.
00:12:36Guest:I wrote one song with David Mamet, other songs by myself.
00:12:43Marc:So David Mamet only shares credit on one Katzenjammer song.
00:12:47Marc:Right.
00:12:48Marc:So how much did you have to split on that?
00:12:50Guest:we shared the writing credit and then the publishing went to somebody else so so you didn't get any no every once in a while and and robin sang it on mork and mindy did he yeah that's every once in a while check for like 80 cents shows up sure yeah from the from the mork and mindy right and then and then mammoth gets an 80 cents as well right so comedy came second comedy was my uh
00:13:15Guest:it was my i discovered as a musician that when i sang people talked yeah when i talked people sang no people listened yeah but i never met anybody dance that's a that's the one you made them talk yeah i made them talk and then you decided to do stand-up
00:13:36Guest:yeah it wasn't like a conscious decision but i just sort of i i went from having a five-piece band yeah to a three-piece band and working solo and i still haven't told the other two guys this is like an 80. they're still showing up for gigs yeah john will be here soon god damn it he didn't come again right 23 30 years of that right you'd think they'd learn yeah it's crazy maybe you should call them yeah
00:14:03Marc:but uh when i met you i think i for some reason i have a recollection of you uh nick's comedy stop when i was starting out doing a set and you had you did have uh you did your jokes and then you had some sort of guitar thing that had a built-in recording right right i used to pretend i was playing the guitar but actually the sound was being generated by a little tape machine
00:14:26Guest:Inside the guitar.
00:14:27Guest:Right.
00:14:27Guest:And so all I could do was start and stop it.
00:14:30Marc:Right.
00:14:30Marc:And the bit was under the boardwalk maybe?
00:14:34Guest:Save the last dance.
00:14:34Guest:That's what I'd close with.
00:14:35Guest:But I also had things like I'd stare at some young woman in the audience and you'd hear, oh my God.
00:14:42Guest:Yeah.
00:14:42Guest:Who is that exquisite creature staring at me?
00:14:46Marc:And it wasn't you talking.
00:14:47Guest:No.
00:14:47Guest:Right, right.
00:14:48Guest:That's right.
00:14:50Guest:Did you build the cassette into the guitar yourself?
00:14:53Guest:I had help from some guy in Watertown, I think.
00:14:58Marc:Yeah, but you always had the good jokes.
00:15:02Marc:For me, what is it?
00:15:04Marc:There's an argument about the moment of conception.
00:15:08Marc:For me, it's after that first cup of coffee.
00:15:10Guest:Oh, right.
00:15:11Guest:When life begins.
00:15:12Guest:When life begins.
00:15:13Guest:For me, it's after that second cup of coffee.
00:15:15Marc:What was your relationship with David Mamet?
00:15:19Marc:I mean, were you guys childhood friends?
00:15:21Guest:How did you meet that guy?
00:15:22Guest:We met in college.
00:15:25Guest:We both went to Goddard College, and when Goddard College in 1965, they were supposed to have two campuses, but they hadn't built the second one yet.
00:15:34Guest:So David and I were housed in farmhouses in Marshfield, Vermont.
00:15:39Guest:Really?
00:15:40Guest:Yeah.
00:15:40Guest:And it's just coincidental?
00:15:42Guest:Yeah.
00:15:42Guest:And I discovered that he's extraordinarily funny.
00:15:46Marc:Yeah.
00:15:46Marc:And what was he like as a young man?
00:15:50Marc:Was he angry?
00:15:51Guest:No, no.
00:15:52Guest:He was the only guy who actually wanted a college education.
00:15:55Guest:And he was even then a compulsive writer.
00:16:00Guest:Yeah.
00:16:01Guest:Loved women.
00:16:02Guest:Yeah.
00:16:02Guest:Like many of us did.
00:16:03Guest:But we actually were attracted to the same woman.
00:16:07Guest:And I got there first.
00:16:09Guest:And he carried me.
00:16:10Guest:He's very strong physically out of her room and deposited me in the snow.
00:16:15Guest:Just to say that it wasn't about who got there first.
00:16:18Guest:Did he end up getting her or did you...
00:16:20Guest:No, I think I ended up spending more time with her, ultimately.
00:16:24Marc:Uh-huh.
00:16:25Marc:Because I'm not a brute.
00:16:26Marc:Yeah.
00:16:27Marc:He's a brute, clearly.
00:16:28Marc:Yeah.
00:16:29Marc:And he's taken a turn for the very Jewish lately, correct?
00:16:32Guest:Yeah.
00:16:32Guest:You know, I was telling somebody, I don't really talk to him about... Judaism?
00:16:36Guest:About anything but...
00:16:38Guest:jokes and we speak in code.
00:16:41Guest:I'm sure you have a friend like that who you don't really share that much personal information with, but he's the only one who understands something that you're saying, a childhood friend maybe.
00:16:53Marc:Well, that's interesting, yeah, because comedians are like that for comedy, and Jews are like that for everything else.
00:16:58Marc:I mean, I feel a sort of innate connection with most middle-class, not-too-religious Jewish people.
00:17:06Marc:Don't you?
00:17:07Marc:Like, I feel connected to you, even though you don't like me very much.
00:17:09Guest:It's a new thing.
00:17:10Guest:That's not true.
00:17:11Guest:I've never not liked you as much as I've never not liked you.
00:17:15Guest:But I could say to you, I could use the phrase, oy.
00:17:20Marc:Yeah, and I would feel at home with that.
00:17:21Guest:Yeah, or I could say, everybody's got their own Michigan.
00:17:23Marc:Yeah, you could say that, and I could adapt to that.
00:17:27Marc:So when you guys met, when Tom Snyder and you hooked up for the Dr. Katzing, I mean, look, we were all trying to do something as comedians at that time.
00:17:36Marc:Did you not want to leave Boston?
00:17:39Marc:Were you sort of like, how did the evolution from, did you give up on stand-up at some point?
00:17:45Guest:No, we moved to Newton because my daughter was almost three, and I spent too much time looking over my shoulder living in New York with a girl on a stroller.
00:18:00Marc:And then you decided for the safety of the child.
00:18:03Guest:Yeah, and also my wife wanted to do it.
00:18:06Guest:Her family is from Newton, so she had the support of a sister, a mother, a father...
00:18:11Marc:Wasn't there some party that was like, oh, fuck, now what's going to happen to my comedy?
00:18:16Guest:Well, oddly enough, the day I moved to Boston, the night before I was on Letterman.
00:18:22Guest:Yeah.
00:18:23Guest:So then it became being near an airport.
00:18:26Guest:Yeah.
00:18:26Guest:And I remember the next night I performed at maybe at Nick's and George MacDonald, remember George MacDonald?
00:18:31Guest:Sure.
00:18:31Guest:Came up to me and said, I heard you say you were moving here last night, but I didn't believe it.
00:18:37Marc:And there you were.
00:18:38Marc:Yeah.
00:18:38Marc:Yeah.
00:18:38Marc:So it all worked out.
00:18:40Marc:In your mind, you're like, I can travel from anywhere.
00:18:42Guest:Yeah.
00:18:42Marc:And I can work here.
00:18:44Marc:Right.
00:18:44Marc:And how long were you in Boston before you met Tom?
00:18:48Guest:Well, it must have been about, I moved in 85, maybe almost less than 10 years.
00:18:53Guest:Oh, yeah, much less because I think it was 92 that I stopped by your house.
00:18:58Marc:Great.
00:18:58Marc:And how did the Dr. Katzing happen?
00:19:00Marc:Because I talked to you briefly about it, and I talked to Lauren, obviously, and he was the young gun there that you took under your wing.
00:19:07Marc:Yes, he was great.
00:19:08Marc:That's how he framed it, that you changed his life.
00:19:10Guest:He was brilliant.
00:19:11Guest:He was brilliant.
00:19:12Guest:I think he was a bouncer.
00:19:13Guest:I don't know.
00:19:14Guest:Did he mention that?
00:19:15Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:15Marc:Lauren Bouchard said, you came into the bar where he was bouncing or bartending at, and he saw it as fate.
00:19:22Guest:Yeah.
00:19:22Guest:And it was great.
00:19:23Guest:I mean, it's a happy accident for me, too.
00:19:26Guest:Just, if I could start by trying to say, oy, and I...
00:19:31Guest:Yeah, definitely, you can try.
00:19:32Guest:With a Wellesley accent.
00:19:34Guest:Yeah, with a, you know.
00:19:37Marc:I'm sorry.
00:19:38Marc:Thanks.
00:19:39Marc:It didn't, there wasn't a tradition of pain in it.
00:19:42Marc:No.
00:19:43Marc:I didn't hear the suffering of thousands of years.
00:19:47Marc:I've had a very happy life.
00:19:48Marc:Where did you grow up?
00:19:50Marc:Wellesley.
00:19:51Marc:Really?
00:19:51Marc:Yeah.
00:19:51Marc:I didn't know anyone who lived there.
00:19:52Marc:Yeah.
00:19:53Marc:I remember I had to drive there with the dream of dating somebody.
00:19:56Marc:I think I went out with someone from Wellesley once when I was in college there.
00:20:00Guest:When I was in Boston.
00:20:01Guest:Third grade, my girlfriend's name was Amy Feinberg, and she was bused in from Newton.
00:20:06Guest:Seriously, there was a little VW bus.
00:20:08Guest:They had to bring her in?
00:20:09Guest:Yeah.
00:20:09Guest:And I said to my dad, Amy Feinberg, this girl is like none of the girls I've ever met.
00:20:14Guest:Yeah.
00:20:14Guest:He said...
00:20:15Guest:that's she's a jew and i said what's a jew and he said we don't have them here he literally said that and so it made it all the more intriguing for me to meet guys like you yeah really like the the strength the jews yeah and we were drawn as jewish guys to the exotic world of gentiles anything but jews exotic exotic world of genitals yeah yeah but uh so when you did you go where'd you go to college i went to swarthmore
00:20:42Marc:Now, was animation always a thing?
00:20:44Marc:I mean, where do you come from?
00:20:46Guest:Well, I was a French literature major, and I taught science in an elementary school.
00:20:52Guest:Actually, before that, I was a recording artist in L.A.
00:20:57Guest:back in the late 60s with a band.
00:21:00Guest:What band?
00:21:02Guest:You've never heard of them.
00:21:03Guest:It doesn't matter.
00:21:03Guest:Really?
00:21:04Guest:Yeah.
00:21:04Guest:Oh, that's fun.
00:21:05Guest:Look this up.
00:21:06Guest:T. Fenimore.
00:21:07Guest:T. Fenimore?
00:21:08Guest:Yeah.
00:21:08Guest:And you had to deal with capital, didn't you?
00:21:10Guest:we had a five-year with uh capital and that was back in the year when they were late 60s yes and so you were like 20 i was 19 and you came out here to fucking rock i came out here the first place our producer took us who was uh bobby goldsborough's remember him uh-huh one day the angels came uh-huh and he took us to a topless restaurant which they don't really have anymore and um no they cut out the food entirely
00:21:35Guest:That's right.
00:21:37Guest:A real loss, I think.
00:21:39Guest:That was a breakthrough.
00:21:41Marc:We don't need the food if we got the tits.
00:21:46Guest:So I went into teaching eventually.
00:21:49Marc:Tell me about rock and roll in the late 60s.
00:21:51Marc:When you come to Los Angeles, the Sunset Strip was alive and well and things were rocking.
00:21:57Guest:It was, but we were from Wellesley, both of us.
00:22:01Guest:There was only two of yous?
00:22:01Guest:Yeah, we'd co-written a song.
00:22:03Guest:Two of yous.
00:22:04Guest:I like that.
00:22:05Guest:And they brought a trio of black girls to come and sing behind us.
00:22:10Guest:They were called the Sophisticates.
00:22:12Guest:We took them out to dinner because we were so formal.
00:22:14Marc:What was the song?
00:22:16Marc:You took them to the Topless restaurant?
00:22:18Guest:No, no, no.
00:22:19Guest:We had a slightly nicer place.
00:22:20Marc:That was good.
00:22:21Guest:Lorna, Lorna.
00:22:22Guest:You can find it.
00:22:24Marc:Lorna, Lorna, so it was a pop song.
00:22:25Marc:It was a pop song.
00:22:27Marc:It was not a hippy-dippy song.
00:22:29Marc:It was not a drug song.
00:22:30Marc:It was like an old-school pop song.
00:22:32Guest:No, it was more like a combination of The Beatles and... Steely Dan?
00:22:37Guest:No, this was pre-Steely Dan, of course.
00:22:39Guest:Doo-woppy?
00:22:40Guest:No, more like Paul Simon meets The Beatles and...
00:22:43Guest:If you listen carefully, both Lincoln and I, this is my writing partner, were singing with a slight British accent.
00:22:49Guest:And we didn't know it.
00:22:50Guest:Of course.
00:22:51Guest:Lana, Lana, even the world, world as the day goes shining.
00:22:58Guest:See, Tom is a little more modest than me about his music, because Cats and Jammers, if you listen to Cats and Jammers, you can hear traces.
00:23:08Guest:I think it's fair to say that I influenced, not the Beatles, but the Stones.
00:23:14Guest:Sure.
00:23:15Guest:Certainly Van Morrison.
00:23:17Guest:Yeah.
00:23:17Marc:So you preceded them?
00:23:19Guest:Yeah.
00:23:19Guest:Or you influenced their later work?
00:23:21Guest:Tell them, well, you might remember how John used to introduce himself.
00:23:25Guest:Oh, it was the white Paul Simon.
00:23:27Guest:That was how I built myself initially.
00:23:29Marc:Well, yeah, you kind of looked like him, right?
00:23:31Guest:Yeah, and I was in a studio with him once, well, with Carrie Fisher, not with Paul Simon.
00:23:37Guest:She played Dr. Katz's, what's the word, putative?
00:23:40Guest:Putative.
00:23:41Guest:Hey, fuck you.
00:23:43Guest:His ex-wife named Roz and Carrie Fisher, who used to be married to Paul Simon, she looked at me and she said, oh my God, it's like being with him.
00:23:55Guest:That was the Thanksgiving episode of Dr. God, the only seasonal episode we ever did.
00:24:00Guest:How many episodes did you do?
00:24:01Guest:81.
00:24:01Marc:84?
00:24:03Marc:Can we agree on it?
00:24:06Guest:We split the difference?
00:24:07Marc:Okay.
00:24:07Marc:I think you were cut out of three.
00:24:08Guest:Oh, it would have been so nice if you could have been in the last three.
00:24:12Marc:Yeah, they just didn't need you anymore.
00:24:13Guest:But you know what?
00:24:13Guest:Comedy Central, they called me and said, too much cats.
00:24:16Marc:Too much, yeah.
00:24:18Marc:84 episodes.
00:24:20Marc:Now, they're available now again on DVD, right?
00:24:22Guest:Yeah, there's a box set.
00:24:23Guest:A box set.
00:24:24Guest:But I think you don't really have to pay for it because they're all on YouTube, I think.
00:24:28Guest:Does that upset you?
00:24:29Guest:No.
00:24:29Guest:No, because we don't make a penny from it.
00:24:31Guest:Not episodically on YouTube.
00:24:33Guest:You see most of the patients.
00:24:36Marc:But you don't see more of you.
00:24:37Marc:You don't see the narrative of you and your son and your receptionist.
00:24:40Guest:Which is the whole fun of Dr. Cas for us.
00:24:43Marc:Hey, believe me, I do an interview show with an opening monologue that not everybody sticks around for.
00:24:47Guest:Right.
00:24:49Guest:Who's on the show?
00:24:50Guest:Let's just forward through Maren's bullshit.
00:24:52Guest:Do you know that because of the Google Analytics?
00:24:54Marc:No, I don't do any of that analytics.
00:24:56Guest:I have one of those in my house, too, those HBO posters.
00:24:58Marc:With you on it?
00:24:59Guest:Yeah.
00:25:00Marc:We did those.
00:25:00Marc:Holy shit, that's right.
00:25:02Marc:Yeah, have I interviewed everybody on there?
00:25:04Marc:Bobcat I interviewed, now you.
00:25:06Marc:Dana I've interviewed, not Judy.
00:25:08Marc:But she was on a live one, okay.
00:25:09Marc:Me, Janine, I've interviewed, and Carlos I've interviewed.
00:25:11Marc:How do you like that?
00:25:12Marc:That's pretty cool.
00:25:13Marc:I don't remember what night you were on or whether I was there for it.
00:25:16Marc:But yeah, I have that poster.
00:25:19Marc:There you are.
00:25:19Marc:That headshot.
00:25:20Marc:I remember that headshot from clubs and colleges all over the New England area.
00:25:24Guest:We're used to sucking your cheeks, right?
00:25:26Guest:Admit it.
00:25:28Guest:You do that?
00:25:28Guest:No.
00:25:29Guest:My mother does that.
00:25:30Guest:But I remember when we first started doing comedy, whoever introduced you always exaggerated.
00:25:37Guest:Sure.
00:25:37Guest:Still.
00:25:38Guest:We do clubs and colleges all over the country.
00:25:40Guest:I haven't actually left the west side of Manhattan yet.
00:25:43Marc:Oh, yeah, Clubs and Colleges.
00:25:44Marc:He's been on Leno, Carson, Letterman, Carson Daly, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Letterman again, Craig Ferguson.
00:25:53Marc:I really don't like when they say Leno because I haven't been on it and I get mad about it.
00:25:56Marc:And then your credits sort of catch up with you.
00:25:58Marc:Sure.
00:25:59Guest:And it actually becomes true.
00:26:01Guest:Right.
00:26:01Guest:John, did you do Griffin?
00:26:04Guest:I did.
00:26:05Guest:I did not do Griffin, but I did.
00:26:07Guest:Who's the guy who's on in the daytime out of Philadelphia?
00:26:11Guest:Tom Snyder.
00:26:12Marc:no what happened to tom snyder is he still alive he died he did yeah it's okay yeah i mean so now what did you what did you study in college i went to goddard college so i studied sex and drugs sure well that's what we all studied but what were you there for according to your parents oh you actually no that i i actually goddard college was was the kind of school where you made up your own courses and
00:26:38Guest:Oh, that's nice behavior.
00:26:41Guest:It's texture.
00:26:42Guest:I like to keep the neighborhood alive.
00:26:44Guest:But I actually got credit for a course that I had to call a study in self-physical development.
00:26:52Guest:And it was just me running around the parking lot twice a week.
00:26:55Marc:Study in self-physical development?
00:26:58Marc:So you just look at your body or you take a journal?
00:27:02Guest:Yeah, and I didn't always do it.
00:27:05Guest:My mentor, and that was a guy named Mark Ryder who was a dance teacher there,
00:27:12Guest:You're telling the truth, which I like.
00:27:14Marc:It's hard to tell with you, but this is actually a real thing.
00:27:17Guest:And I used to carry a doctor's bag with me.
00:27:20Guest:And sometimes it always had a ping pong racket in it.
00:27:23Marc:Did you carry a doctor's bag?
00:27:24Guest:Yeah.
00:27:25Guest:Where'd you get it?
00:27:26Guest:I think I got it at like a place called Dude and Harry's in Vermont, an antique store.
00:27:32Guest:That was your thing?
00:27:33Marc:You were the kid with the doctor's bag on campus?
00:27:35Guest:Yeah, but I also sometimes actually had mescaline in it.
00:27:38Guest:Yeah?
00:27:40Guest:Who says mescaline?
00:27:41Guest:Mescaline.
00:27:41Guest:I didn't say it right.
00:27:42Guest:Mescaline?
00:27:43Guest:Mescaline, yeah.
00:27:44Guest:And I would sell it if I had any left.
00:27:49Guest:Really?
00:27:50Marc:Out of your doctor's bag, you sold hallucinogenic, but organic hallucinogenic drugs.
00:27:55Guest:Yeah.
00:27:56Guest:And I had some wonderful experiences on drugs and one awful, which is enough.
00:28:02Guest:You just need one really awful experience.
00:28:04Marc:What was that one?
00:28:05Guest:And kids, if you're listening, don't try to sit home.
00:28:13Guest:I took a tab of LSD at around midnight.
00:28:17Guest:Oh, that's never.
00:28:18Guest:In Vermont.
00:28:19Guest:Oh, boy.
00:28:19Guest:Sub-zero weather.
00:28:21Marc:So you couldn't go outside?
00:28:23Guest:Well, I did go outside.
00:28:24Guest:I was oblivious to the weather, but the first place I went was to a dorm that was a vegetarian lesbian dorm.
00:28:35Guest:And they let me in.
00:28:36Guest:It was that specific?
00:28:37Guest:Yeah, they let me in because I was freezing, but I blew my cover.
00:28:41Guest:I had meat.
00:28:42Guest:And then I went to another dorm where some guy offered to read from the Book of the Dead.
00:28:50Guest:Really?
00:28:51Marc:They were like, you're tripping.
00:28:52Guest:Yeah.
00:28:53Guest:And I thought that was the right thing to do.
00:28:55Guest:It was so depressing.
00:28:56Guest:And then the person who saved my life was my sister.
00:28:59Guest:You called her?
00:29:01Guest:She said, Jonathan, you took a drug.
00:29:04Guest:Relax.
00:29:05Relax.
00:29:06Marc:It'll go away soon.
00:29:09Marc:Ride it out, kid.
00:29:11Guest:That's true.
00:29:12Marc:That's such a mistake.
00:29:14Marc:Were you a druggie, Tom?
00:29:15Guest:Yes.
00:29:16Guest:I totally wasted college, but just with pot.
00:29:20Guest:No, really?
00:29:20Guest:And mescaline, oddly, too, because sometimes you'd mix the two together for a particularly bad evening.
00:29:28Right.
00:29:28Marc:So, okay, I want to talk.
00:29:31Marc:So you went out here to be a pop star in that fold.
00:29:34Marc:Folded terribly.
00:29:35Marc:But when you came out here, the idea was that this guy who brought you out here was going to make it a hit.
00:29:40Marc:He didn't make a hit.
00:29:41Marc:What was the process?
00:29:42Marc:Because you always hear about the late 60s in music.
00:29:45Marc:It was like this golden era of almost like everyone was getting record deals.
00:29:49Guest:Yeah, they were signing hundreds and hundreds of people and booking studio time.
00:29:53Guest:And it was so, even in the late 60s, even though the Beatles had already changed recording forever by controlling the studio, we'd go in it and there'd be guys in their 50s and 60s in coats and ties.
00:30:05Guest:Sure, the paradigm hadn't completely shifted yet.
00:30:07Guest:Yeah, and those were the engineers, but the musicians too.
00:30:09Guest:And they'd sit down, cross their leg, light a cigarette, get the charts out, put a guitar on their knee.
00:30:17Guest:Knock it out.
00:30:18Guest:They'd hire a guy just to play the shaker, and he'd be in an ISO booth.
00:30:23Guest:And we'd get an hour to do it.
00:30:27Guest:And then they made the record, and I was terribly flat.
00:30:31Guest:I couldn't hear myself.
00:30:34Guest:I don't know.
00:30:35Guest:This was probably an eight-track studio.
00:30:37Guest:Eight-track was all they had.
00:30:39Guest:Maybe four.
00:30:40Guest:It could have been four.
00:30:41Guest:Yeah, it might have been half-inch tape.
00:30:44Guest:I don't know the number of inches.
00:30:46Marc:So you both had musical dreams, cats and jammers.
00:30:49Guest:Yeah, and also the biggest performance I ever did in front of a live audience singing was my bar mitzvah, and I killed it.
00:30:59Guest:Yeah.
00:31:00Guest:And you were paid well, right?
00:31:02Guest:It's the most I ever made until I did an HBO special.
00:31:06Marc:So you grew up in the city?
00:31:07Marc:In New York City, yeah.
00:31:08Marc:What did your old man do?
00:31:10Guest:My father was a communist by day.
00:31:12Guest:Yeah.
00:31:13Guest:And both my parents were... Old school Jewish commies?
00:31:16Guest:Yeah.
00:31:16Guest:And my dad was a really... A very...
00:31:20Guest:well-known and successful labor leader.
00:31:24Guest:He would be on the front page of the New York Times almost daily before the Second World War, during the war.
00:31:30Guest:And my mom was welding ships in Brooklyn in the Navy Yard.
00:31:36Marc:For the, what did they call that?
00:31:39Guest:Rosie the Riveter.
00:31:39Guest:Rosie the Riveter.
00:31:40Guest:Right.
00:31:41Guest:And they both hung out with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and were part of that group.
00:31:47Guest:Oh, wow.
00:31:48Marc:So there was a lot of sing-alongs in the living room kind of thing?
00:31:52Marc:Before I arrived.
00:31:53Marc:Once I arrived.
00:31:55Marc:That was it?
00:31:55Marc:Everything changed?
00:31:56Marc:Yep.
00:31:57Marc:What about you, Tom?
00:31:58Guest:What kind of background did you come from?
00:32:00Guest:My dad was really rich and an officer in the Navy.
00:32:04Guest:Yeah?
00:32:05Guest:And my mom was very poor, came from an Appalachian mountain that was a coal town, and she ran away from home when she was about...
00:32:13Guest:17 and went to new york city and met rogers and hammerstein stein yeah it doesn't matter okay and uh gotten there one of the uh the next show they did which was or the first show they did together was oklahoma so um i grew up uh sitting at the piano with that do you remember those music books of rogers and hammerstein yeah colorful pictures sure yeah yeah and i learned all those chords and how to sing all those songs so she she was a dancer
00:32:42Guest:She was a dancer in those, and so she used to take us down on the train to all the openings, and I'd meet Mary Martin and all those guys.
00:32:49Guest:Really?
00:32:50Guest:And my parents would be outside protesting for the stagehands who weren't being paid properly.
00:32:56Guest:And I was singing in the men's room at, I don't think you call it halftime, but I was easily potentially an early gay boy.
00:33:07Guest:In that past, or?
00:33:08Guest:It did.
00:33:09Guest:It went away.
00:33:09Guest:Because of your attraction to women.
00:33:11Guest:Because my dad just beat the crap out of me.
00:33:13Guest:Beat the gay out of you?
00:33:14Guest:Beat the gay out of me.
00:33:15Guest:I don't know if you guys ever knew this, because you're a bit younger.
00:33:18Guest:No, you're older.
00:33:20Guest:If you did your top button on your shirt with no tie, you're gay?
00:33:25Guest:Yeah.
00:33:25Marc:No, I think those signals and signs change.
00:33:27Marc:Now you can just be gay without a code.
00:33:29Marc:Yeah.
00:33:29Marc:Yeah, all that's, there's no reason.
00:33:32Guest:But I'd come home from school and take off my tie that I had to wear to school when I was in like fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade.
00:33:38Guest:And he'd walk over immediately and undo my top button to make sure.
00:33:42Guest:Because I think he had cause and effect backwards.
00:33:44Guest:I think he thought if you did that button.
00:33:46Marc:Oh, it would turn you into a homosexual.
00:33:49Marc:Yeah.
00:33:49Marc:Yeah.
00:33:50Marc:So your dad comes from what, old money kind of thing?
00:33:52Guest:Old money.
00:33:53Marc:Oh, really?
00:33:53Marc:Quaker.
00:33:54Marc:No kidding.
00:33:55Marc:Way back.
00:33:55Marc:Yeah.
00:33:57Guest:So did they own part of Wellesley?
00:33:59Guest:No, they moved to Wellesley.
00:34:00Guest:Actually, they moved to Wellesley because of all the money my mom had made on Broadway.
00:34:05Guest:She made just a ton.
00:34:06Guest:Now, she went to the Philippines with Oklahoma during the war, and Dad was on a ship in the Philippines.
00:34:14Guest:So it was a marriage made in heaven.
00:34:16Guest:An officer and a poor dancer who was beautiful.
00:34:21Guest:Tom, weren't you the guy who had to be taught to be afraid?
00:34:27Guest:To hate.
00:34:28Guest:To be afraid of people whose eyes are a different shade?
00:34:30Guest:Yes.
00:34:31Guest:Yeah.
00:34:32Guest:What happened?
00:34:32Guest:Oh, that's the hammer from South Pacific.
00:34:35Guest:You've got to be taught to hate or be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made.
00:34:45Guest:Well, none of us like people that are different from us in a sense that I don't feel that comfortable with you guys.
00:34:50Guest:I feel okay about you.
00:34:52Guest:I mean, I kind of summed you up.
00:34:55Guest:Thank you.
00:34:56Guest:When I checked into the hotel room, we've been here a week now almost, there was a pill on the floor.
00:35:02Guest:I decided it was either ecstasy or rat poison.
00:35:06Guest:And last night, Tom and I were in the restaurant flirting with these two gay women from Australia.
00:35:13Guest:And I invited them up to our room.
00:35:15Guest:I said, why don't we move the party to my room?
00:35:16Guest:We can split a tab of rat poison.
00:35:19Guest:And they said no.
00:35:20Guest:Yeah.
00:35:21Guest:It was really a brilliantly delivery because John said, look, we're both married.
00:35:26Guest:Yeah.
00:35:26Guest:You guys are both gay.
00:35:27Guest:Why don't we move this party up to my room?
00:35:29Marc:And put a pill of rat poison.
00:35:31Guest:Yeah.
00:35:31Guest:You know, it's tempting, whether it's rat poison or ecstasy, to just try it.
00:35:36Guest:Try it on a rat.
00:35:38Guest:Wait, so you still have the pill?
00:35:39Guest:Yes, and we have a photograph of it so we can look it up online.
00:35:43Guest:Is it labeled?
00:35:44Guest:No, it has no markings.
00:35:45Guest:Yeah, but it is a real capsule.
00:35:47Guest:One half is one color, one half is the other.
00:35:49Guest:It probably might be cold medicine.
00:35:52Marc:You guys have invested a lot in this random tablet you found.
00:35:57Marc:There's a whole mystery.
00:36:00Marc:When you find out what it is, are you going to take it?
00:36:02Marc:Or are you just going to say, oh, it's one of that?
00:36:05Guest:Your wife has given you explicit instructions never to take ecstasy.
00:36:09Guest:I think we have to abide by that.
00:36:10Guest:Why?
00:36:11Guest:It's just not good for me neurologically.
00:36:14Guest:But I also might like it too much.
00:36:18Guest:How are you doing with that?
00:36:19Guest:I'm doing okay.
00:36:20Guest:You know, I give myself an injection every night.
00:36:24Guest:Of what?
00:36:25Guest:A drug called Copaxone, an MS drug.
00:36:27Guest:And once a month I have an infusion of solumedrol.
00:36:31Guest:But I don't like, you know, MS is such a weird disease.
00:36:35Guest:It affects everybody differently.
00:36:36Guest:So what works for one person doesn't work for another necessarily.
00:36:40Guest:And what is it?
00:36:41Guest:You've had it for how long now?
00:36:43Guest:I was diagnosed in 97, so about... Wow.
00:36:46Marc:Yeah.
00:36:47Marc:And in terms of prognosis with something like that, the doctor's basically like, well, we don't know how this goes for any individual.
00:36:53Guest:Right, but the thing is, if I had been diagnosed in the year 1980, I'd be much worse shape because there were no drugs.
00:37:02Guest:Right.
00:37:02Guest:Pretty much, I'm sorry to hear that.
00:37:05Guest:That would be the diagnosis.
00:37:07Guest:But my doctor, I asked my neurologist at the time, what does a guy my age do when they find out that they're diagnosed with MS?
00:37:18Guest:And he said, some guys have, and I'm there with my wife, meeting with him, and I said, some guys have 12 affairs, and other guys climb Mount Everest.
00:37:27Guest:So my wife and I talked it over to him.
00:37:29Guest:And we decided on one affair, three romantic dinners.
00:37:38Guest:Because I'm not an outdoorsman.
00:37:40Guest:But when I get back to Newton, I want to be the first guy with MS to climb Mount Auburn.
00:37:47Guest:I was going to say Mount Ida, but Mount Auburn works too.
00:37:50Marc:I don't even know where Mount Auburn is.
00:37:52Marc:I know there's... It's a street in Cambridge.
00:37:53Guest:I know.
00:37:54Guest:Is there a Mount, though?
00:37:55Guest:No, there's no... But there's a Mount Ida.
00:37:57Guest:It's a junior college for girls.
00:37:59Guest:Yeah, I remember that.
00:38:01Marc:It was not a good one.
00:38:01Marc:It was almost like a business school, right?
00:38:03Marc:Yeah, but I'm going to climb it.
00:38:04Marc:You'd like to Mount Ida?
00:38:06Marc:Yeah.
00:38:07Marc:But it has you... So outside of that joke that you just did, how often do you go on stage and do you talk about the MS?
00:38:14Guest:I do.
00:38:14Guest:You know, for years I was totally in the closet with it.
00:38:20Guest:But then, now I can't shut up about it.
00:38:23Marc:Well, it's hard to be in the closet when you need the cane.
00:38:26Guest:Yeah.
00:38:26Marc:You're going to have to address that a bit.
00:38:28Marc:Right, and the scooter.
00:38:30Marc:I like the scooter.
00:38:30Guest:Yeah.
00:38:31Guest:Yeah.
00:38:32Guest:We have a three-scooter family now.
00:38:34Guest:Yeah.
00:38:34Guest:I got a scooter from Israel.
00:38:37Guest:Someone sent it to you?
00:38:37Marc:Or you bought one there?
00:38:39Guest:Well, they sent it to me in exchange for money.
00:38:41Guest:Yeah.
00:38:42Guest:But it goes, it says on the speedometer 111, but I think they mean 11.
00:38:50Guest:Because it's an amazingly powerful, it looks like a Vespa.
00:38:54Guest:Yeah.
00:38:55Guest:Or my wife calls it the Hummer of mobility scooters.
00:38:59Guest:It's got that thing where the turtle on one side and a rabbit on the other.
00:39:04Guest:So you have an enormous range of power selection.
00:39:07Marc:It actually has those pictures?
00:39:08Guest:Yeah.
00:39:09Guest:On this one, but not on the Israeli one.
00:39:11Guest:Oh, they don't?
00:39:12Guest:No.
00:39:12Guest:What's their symbol for fast?
00:39:14Guest:A bullet.
00:39:15Guest:Yeah.
00:39:16Guest:A bus.
00:39:17Guest:But it goes off-road.
00:39:19Guest:It might even work in the snow.
00:39:21Guest:Oh, really?
00:39:21Marc:So you can really take it out?
00:39:22Guest:Yeah.
00:39:22Guest:Maybe you could do Everest on that.
00:39:24Guest:You know, Everest is not a handicapped accessible.
00:39:28Guest:Do they have charging stations on the way up, too?
00:39:31Guest:That's true.
00:39:31Guest:I don't want to lose juice.
00:39:34Marc:All right, so you guys, whatever happens to you, 1970, you teach, and that's how you met Warren Bouchard?
00:39:42Guest:No, not 70.
00:39:42Guest:He's a student.
00:39:43Marc:92.
00:39:44Marc:What did you do from 70 to 92?
00:39:46Guest:I taught from, after I got out of Swarthmore, I taught for 10 years at an elementary school, taught science.
00:39:52Guest:So the music career was a glitch.
00:39:54Guest:Yeah, I kept on trying the way everybody does.
00:39:58Guest:You kept going to New York and making tunes and recording them.
00:40:01Guest:But Tom Riddle, the music for Dr. Katz and many other animated shows.
00:40:05Guest:Yeah, I still am an inveterate sort of that Steely Dan era R&B.
00:40:11Guest:Can you explain those fuckers to me?
00:40:12Marc:Yes.
00:40:12Marc:Because people are like, how can you not like Steely Dan?
00:40:15Marc:There's a certain type of almost fanatical Steely Dan fan.
00:40:20Marc:It's true.
00:40:21Marc:And I listen to a couple songs and I get it.
00:40:24Marc:It's nice.
00:40:24Marc:It sounds nice.
00:40:25Marc:I get it.
00:40:25Marc:The production's great.
00:40:26Marc:But the people that love them are like, no, you don't understand.
00:40:29Guest:what don't i what don't i understand well i wonder if this would help uh do you speak jazz sure a little bit because they they melded jazz with rock and roll or rhythm and blues in a way that had never been done oh is that that's the thing i think that's kind of true although that was sort of what all those fusion bands did like stuff and
00:40:48Guest:but um i heard like spirogyra yes yeah but uh donald fagan was on marion mcpartlin you know her jazz show and she asked what were you and becker why did you start a band at they were at goddard too right no no bard bard and he said we were both into jazz and
00:41:09Marc:science fiction and comedy and that's he said if you put those three things together you get steely dance so maybe that's the answer so it's it's really a a nerd thing yeah no way it is uh yeah the science fiction element the science fiction and jazz element right there i can see how you know my my penis just wilted
00:41:29Marc:Yes.
00:41:30Marc:There's not enough blues.
00:41:32Marc:There's not enough grit.
00:41:33Marc:There's not enough anger, though Fagan is a bit of an angry guy.
00:41:36Marc:Yeah, or he's sort of a sneering guy, but I don't know if it's legitimate anger.
00:41:41Guest:So that's interesting because I... I don't see the comedy part in there at all.
00:41:44Marc:Oh, I think his lyrics are very funny.
00:41:46Marc:No, it's cynically common.
00:41:48Marc:It's a little cynical, but I can hear that.
00:41:50Marc:Like, Hey19, the idea of it is sort of sadly funny.
00:41:53Marc:Yes.
00:41:53Marc:I guess I don't listen to lyrics.
00:41:55Marc:I'm not a big lyric guy either.
00:41:57Marc:Yeah.
00:41:57Marc:Yeah, I just listen to the music.
00:41:58Marc:Well, that's interesting because that's sort of, I would assume like in my, like with animation and myself, like I'm slow to it generally.
00:42:08Marc:Like I'm not a big animation guy.
00:42:09Marc:And I think that, you know, the people that love animation and I think maybe even create animation are probably would lean more towards Steely Dan than I would.
00:42:19Guest:Yes.
00:42:19Guest:And I am not exaggerating one bit when I say I'm not really an animation guy.
00:42:23Guest:yeah i truly don't dig it that much well who were your comedic influences i mean what what i mean uh it was uh um what's her name uh uh mike nichols and elaine may yeah i discovered them when i was about 10 and i could not believe it in wellesley it was like do people even exist who can who just make stuff up when they talk yeah
00:42:45Guest:And so that was, you know, by the time I met John, that was the big experiment.
00:42:49Guest:Let's get people in the booth that are funny and that are talking to each other.
00:42:53Guest:And how lucky that we got John Benjamin and John Katzen.
00:42:56Guest:Improvising.
00:42:57Guest:Improvising.
00:42:58Guest:And we didn't really call it improvising because it was off of an outline and a whole document that we'd created to keep track of the narrative about where the story was going.
00:43:10Guest:Tom would direct the scenes, and directing animation is a very specific skill because you have to let people go until you have what you need for that particular scene, and then you move on.
00:43:23Guest:Yeah, I think Loren goes longer, and I'm not sure.
00:43:26Guest:He watched me do it, and then I watched him do it, and he'd let you guys go a little bit longer, and I was lazy.
00:43:34Guest:I was like, Jesus, that scene's going to take forever to edit.
00:43:37Guest:Right.
00:43:38Marc:He's also probably just sort of like, I'll show him how it's done.
00:43:43Guest:He's very young.
00:43:44Guest:He was extremely young.
00:43:45Guest:And Tom and I one day looked at each other and said, editing audio is a young man's game.
00:43:52Guest:But guess what?
00:43:53Guest:It ain't anymore.
00:43:53Guest:No, Tom edits, I'm not going to use the word compulsively, but religiously.
00:43:59Marc:But in terms of tone and in terms of the device of integrating comedian stand-up into this show, which was what regenerated constantly.
00:44:09Marc:You had the narrative of you and your son and your life.
00:44:12Marc:But what made it compelling to Comedy Central and I think interesting was it was really a unique way to integrate stand-ups in sort of a seamless fashion.
00:44:21Guest:And that was a marketing thing for them.
00:44:23Marc:Yeah, but like in terms of where you guys were coming from, I mean, what did you see that you were doing differently outside of, I guess the technology of how you were making animation was different.
00:44:36Guest:Yeah, that was just a trick.
00:44:38Guest:Yeah, the squiggle vision.
00:44:39Guest:Yeah, that was just a cheap trick to not actually have to animate.
00:44:43Marc:But I think you sort of, it was a foundation of something.
00:44:46Marc:I mean, apparently you made it seem easy enough to spawn other people that do it, but you were sort of at the cutting edge of the trick, right?
00:44:56Guest:Yeah.
00:44:56Guest:And we did think when we brought in other comedians that they were going to be able to do what John and Ben, who I call John Benjamin, were able to do.
00:45:05Guest:But it turned out that, you know, well, you came in.
00:45:08Guest:Yeah, no, I did a couple episodes.
00:45:10Guest:And you were in the booth alone, essentially, at first.
00:45:13Guest:You did your material.
00:45:15Guest:Right.
00:45:16Guest:Because we realized we wanted to get you in a rhythm.
00:45:21Guest:Right.
00:45:22Guest:And it's kind of, I mean, I don't know if you see a shrink, but you kind of get out of your rhythm, I'd imagine.
00:45:27Marc:Oh, I don't see a shrink, but if I'm in that rhythm, they're not doing a good job.
00:45:32Guest:Yeah.
00:45:34Guest:When I first started doing Dr. Katz, I actually took my role much too literally, and everyone came down to my level and made one woman cry.
00:45:42Guest:Is that true?
00:45:43Guest:I made Bob Balaban feel better.
00:45:45Marc:Really?
00:45:46Marc:Yeah.
00:45:47Marc:But initially, so you guys experimented with you being one-on-one with people and the tone was different.
00:45:52Guest:Yeah, it just didn't work as well.
00:45:54Guest:So then we turned it around and had John do drops after the fact.
00:45:58Guest:Right, he'd do the... The only person with whom I really did sessions that were totally improvised was Dom.
00:46:04Guest:Dom Irera?
00:46:05Guest:Yeah, because we know each other so well.
00:46:06Guest:Yeah, you do?
00:46:07Guest:Yeah.
00:46:08Guest:Dom was my first good friend in comedy.
00:46:11Guest:Is that true?
00:46:11Guest:Yeah.
00:46:12Guest:He's a very sweet man.
00:46:13Guest:Yeah.
00:46:13Guest:And are you going to do his podcast?
00:46:15Guest:I did.
00:46:16Guest:Yeah?
00:46:16Guest:Did it go okay?
00:46:17Guest:I think so.
00:46:18Guest:Was that a podcast?
00:46:19Guest:Well, it was shot on video.
00:46:22Guest:And you were sitting alone in the comedy club, right?
00:46:24Guest:Right.
00:46:24Guest:And it went okay except for the fact that I was trying to tell... Maybe I can tell today this great joke about Kate Smith.
00:46:33Guest:Maybe you know this joke.
00:46:33Guest:It's an old joke.
00:46:34Guest:It's topical.
00:46:35Guest:Yeah.
00:46:36Guest:I just botched the joke miserably.
00:46:38Guest:But the joke is Kate Smith, who is a...
00:46:42Guest:a full-figured gal who used to sing the national anthem at sporting events and so one one day she's she's singing at a boxing match and the uh announcer says in the in the in one side of the ring you have a uh sugar ray leonard the other side of the ring you have a uh who's the guy that he fought
00:47:02Guest:Marvin Hagler.
00:47:05Guest:But this happened much before that.
00:47:08Guest:But before we do any of that, please, to sing our national anthem, please welcome Kate Smith.
00:47:15Guest:And somebody in the audience yells out, Kate Smith is a fat fucking whore.
00:47:20Guest:And the answer says, but nonetheless.
00:47:24Guest:And that's the joke I blew.
00:47:27Marc:I'm concerned that you are concerned about blowing that joke.
00:47:32Marc:Did you feel at work this time?
00:47:34Marc:Well, Mark's still here.
00:47:35Marc:Well, no, the beat was there.
00:47:37Marc:I was expecting more.
00:47:40Marc:It's a very Katzian approach to the joke where the punchline is subtle.
00:47:45Marc:I'm not a hero, Mark.
00:47:47Marc:I know you're not.
00:47:47Marc:We established that.
00:47:48Marc:You're my hero, though, in some way.
00:47:50Marc:Well, so Dom Irera, you met at the Improv in New York?
00:47:55Marc:Yeah.
00:47:56Marc:In what, the 80s, early 80s, late 70s?
00:47:58Guest:Early 80s.
00:47:58Guest:And then when he would travel, he and Lisa, his ex-wife, would stay with us, Newton.
00:48:04Guest:And then when they split up, he and some other woman would stay with us.
00:48:08Guest:And then another woman?
00:48:10Yeah, right.
00:48:11Marc:So you never knew who Dom was going to show up with at a certain point.
00:48:15Marc:But who else was in the crew down there?
00:48:16Marc:I mean, you were regular at the improv in New York in the early 80s or late 70s.
00:48:21Marc:Yeah, Pat Buckles was a really good friend.
00:48:23Guest:Do you remember Pat?
00:48:24Guest:I do remember her.
00:48:25Guest:She used to book comic strip live.
00:48:27Guest:And I would call her up and I would always say, so Pat, who's taking it in the seat?
00:48:32Guest:Yeah.
00:48:33Guest:Who's taking it in the seat?
00:48:34Guest:Yeah, like who's getting fucked up the ass.
00:48:37Marc:Uh-huh.
00:48:38Marc:And that was the nature of your relationship with Pat?
00:48:41Guest:Yeah, and she called me Chatty Cathy because I was a gossip.
00:48:44Marc:You were?
00:48:45Guest:Yeah.
00:48:45Guest:What do you got?
00:48:47Guest:Well, three guys were taking it in the seat.
00:48:49Guest:Yeah.
00:48:50Marc:Two guys weren't.
00:48:52Marc:Yeah.
00:48:52Marc:all right so then so let's get back to uh so you you you you threw out the approach of uh actually talking to comics because they would lower the they they would actually get engaged with your tone right because i find that here that like if you ask them the right questions they will very quickly get out of comedian mode and start answering those questions yeah not you though which i appreciate well you know what i discovered and no one really wants to know the truth in comedy
00:49:17Marc:I don't think so.
00:49:18Marc:I think that the success of my podcast is predicated on that.
00:49:21Guest:I mean, with the exception of you.
00:49:22Guest:Yeah.
00:49:23Marc:Well, I guess maybe that's why I'm locked into something.
00:49:26Marc:Right.
00:49:28Marc:So, once you did Dr. Katz, what was the next bit?
00:49:33Guest:Well, actually, Spielberg got excited because he'd watched all of the available ones at that point.
00:49:41Guest:They were just starting DreamWorks.
00:49:45Guest:John and I took what's called the victory lap.
00:49:50Guest:We met with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg.
00:49:53Guest:And we created a show starring John Benjamin again.
00:49:57Guest:And David Cross.
00:49:58Guest:And David Cross and Stephen Wright and Jonathan Katz, of course.
00:50:02Guest:and we put it together and took it out there, and they dug it, but we decided not to go with them, and I know that sounds backwards.
00:50:12Marc:I know it sounds like... Was that a good choice in retrospect?
00:50:14Guest:Well, yeah.
00:50:15Guest:I think it was.
00:50:16Guest:But Spielberg, I said to him at one point... What did that show become, though?
00:50:21Guest:Giving Harry the Business was the name of the show.
00:50:23Guest:John Benjamin was a talent agent in Somerville, Massachusetts, where there was no talent.
00:50:28Guest:I lived there, yeah.
00:50:30Guest:There was some talent then.
00:50:31Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
00:50:32Guest:It was early.
00:50:33Guest:I mean, it was hard to tell.
00:50:35Guest:And the way we pitched it to them was just with an audio.
00:50:38Guest:So we had them sitting there, and we played the audio of an entire episode, and I held up a picture one after another of what the characters were who were talking.
00:50:46Guest:And they sat through that, which was...
00:50:49Guest:Did you make more?
00:50:50Guest:And we edited the audio in the car on the way to the meeting.
00:50:53Guest:Did you?
00:50:53Guest:On a minidisc machine where you could swap the scenes.
00:50:56Marc:Like that one, like that little minidisc?
00:50:57Guest:A little more sophisticated, but not much.
00:50:59Guest:We panicked in the car on the way over and thought, you know, we ought to open with a different scene.
00:51:04Guest:What were you going to say about Spielberg?
00:51:06Guest:Oh, that I said to him...
00:51:09Guest:Because they were intrigued by how we do the show.
00:51:12Guest:And I said, well, we do all the animation in Massachusetts and the voices we do in Korea.
00:51:17Guest:And he said, we do a lot of our work there as well.
00:51:23Guest:No, no, no, didn't get it.
00:51:26Guest:Honestly, though, did not.
00:51:27Guest:And Jeffrey was trying so hard to be funny.
00:51:35Guest:And Steven Spielberg wasn't trying at all.
00:51:38Guest:So it was kind of a fun thing to watch the two of them.
00:51:41Guest:So it was a difficult meeting.
00:51:43Guest:It was good, actually.
00:51:44Guest:They picked us up right away.
00:51:46Guest:How come I've never seen it, though I might not know about it?
00:51:48Guest:Because it was a pilot, and then it didn't go to serious because we walked.
00:51:52Guest:How many did you have made?
00:51:54Guest:We had two made.
00:51:55Guest:So they exist?
00:51:56Guest:They exist, yes.
00:51:56Guest:And I gladly sent it to you.
00:51:59Marc:Yeah?
00:51:59Marc:Yeah.
00:51:59Marc:It seems to me that the Dr. Katz freaks and home movies freaks and Bob's Burgers freaks and everything that you spawn would certainly jump at the opportunity to see something like that.
00:52:09Marc:Yeah, you'd think.
00:52:10Marc:Have you ever tried to put it out in the world?
00:52:12Guest:Well, the thing is ownership is very complicated.
00:52:16Guest:And so you'd say you could call them or call my old company.
00:52:20Guest:I sold my company and say...
00:52:22Guest:Who owns Giving Harry the Business?
00:52:24Guest:And everyone goes, I don't know exactly.
00:52:26Guest:So do you dare put it up there?
00:52:28Guest:Well, I guess, why not?
00:52:29Marc:You know, you can leak it and have someone put it up.
00:52:32Marc:The worst that can happen is a cease and desist, and then you take it down.
00:52:35Marc:If this doesn't leave this room, could you leak it for us?
00:52:38Marc:Sure.
00:52:39Marc:I mean, I have to figure out how to do that.
00:52:40Guest:Yeah.
00:52:41Guest:I mean, I usually have people posting.
00:52:43Guest:There's some wonderful experiments with animation that Tom and I did that you can see on my site, JonathanGatz.com, which is what... Oh, this is something you've probably considered that... Have you ever considered what it will say on your tombstone when the day comes?
00:53:02Guest:yeah how would that go uh well um i think that loving son no i think it would be are we good that's mine is here lies uh loving son loving father loving husband also on the web at jonathancats.com
00:53:24Guest:Yeah.
00:53:26Guest:But you can see some of the work Tom and I did on my site, something called Phone Jobs with Ron Lynch and Steve Sweeney.
00:53:33Guest:Love Ron Lynch.
00:53:35Marc:I love Steve Sweeney.
00:53:36Marc:Do you remember Steve from Boston?
00:53:37Marc:Sure I do.
00:53:39Marc:Yeah.
00:53:39Marc:Yeah, I mean, I wanted to have them on the live WTF I did last year.
00:53:43Marc:I did a live WTF at the Wilbur with Tony V, Frank Santarelli, Jimmy Tingle, Mike Donovan, and Kenny Rogerson.
00:53:49Marc:Yeah.
00:53:49Marc:And it was spectacular.
00:53:51Guest:Mike Donovan is hilarious.
00:53:52Marc:He was great.
00:53:53Marc:So earnest.
00:53:55Marc:You got to listen to that thing.
00:53:57Marc:Because I opened for all those guys when I was starting out in Boston.
00:54:01Marc:And just out of respect and out of love for them, we did this thing.
00:54:04Marc:And he was just funny.
00:54:05Marc:Because I started getting people talking about comics that I knew back then.
00:54:10Marc:What happened to a... I don't remember who it was, but I brought him up.
00:54:14Marc:I wanted people to dish on the guy.
00:54:17Marc:And then somebody started to, and Donovan would just chime in, like, he's doing very well.
00:54:21Marc:He lives in Newton.
00:54:23Marc:He's got lovely children, and he's a very good man.
00:54:27Marc:Like, every turn that I would try to get some dirt going, he would say, nope, he's a very healthy, lovely person.
00:54:35Marc:He was very sweet.
00:54:36Guest:He is a sweet guy.
00:54:38Guest:Here's the difference between me and Mike Donovan.
00:54:40Guest:Mike Donovan once saved a bird that was dying in a tree and brought it down, fed it, kept it safe until it could fly again.
00:54:51Guest:I have a bird that I want killed.
00:54:53Guest:That's where you're at?
00:54:54Guest:Yeah.
00:54:55Guest:I have a bird named Nibbles who bites and is verbally abusive, and I want him dead.
00:55:01Guest:And I fucking hate this bird because our new show we record in Jonathan's basement in eight different rooms.
00:55:07Guest:So each actor, each comedic actor is in a different room, isolated.
00:55:11Guest:And the bird is so loud you can hear it through the insulated walls of all eight rooms.
00:55:16Guest:John has a great studio in his basement.
00:55:18Marc:Except for the bird.
00:55:19Marc:Yeah.
00:55:20Marc:Well, I have my neighbor, Dennis, who I'm wondering what kind of tools we're going to be experiencing momentarily.
00:55:25Guest:Yeah, but do you think this stuff will handle it, this insulation on your walls?
00:55:28Marc:I mean, I've got that door open because it's nice out.
00:55:31Marc:And generally, with these mics, you're on them.
00:55:35Marc:It's not a wide-range mic, but we'll be all right.
00:55:37Marc:So Home Movies was produced by you or it wasn't?
00:55:40Guest:It was my company.
00:55:42Guest:And Lauren, I had said to him, it's time for you to do your own show.
00:55:48Guest:And that's what he did.
00:55:49Guest:And basically, the instruction was, go out and develop a comedy crush.
00:55:53Guest:Right.
00:55:54Guest:What's that mean?
00:55:55Guest:Well, I had a crush on John's comedy because before I'd met him.
00:55:58Guest:Benjamin.
00:55:59Guest:No, John Katz.
00:56:01Guest:I just.
00:56:02Guest:Homewrecker?
00:56:03Guest:Sorry.
00:56:04Guest:Yeah.
00:56:04Guest:But I just couldn't get enough of his particular style.
00:56:08Guest:And I saw him in a David Mamet movie, Things Change.
00:56:11Guest:And then when I found out he was a neighbor, I couldn't get over there fast enough.
00:56:15Guest:to ask him if he would be the talent in Dr. Katz, which I had done originally on my own.
00:56:20Guest:I did all the voices before I met John.
00:56:24Guest:And I said, you know, you've got to find somebody.
00:56:29Guest:I think that's the way it happened.
00:56:30Guest:Maybe he said, I've got to find someone like your Jonathan, because he was jealous that we'd go out and do the outlines for Dr. Katz on our own.
00:56:37Guest:And so he met Brendan at the Hong Kong show.
00:56:41Guest:Do you know Brendan Small?
00:56:42Guest:Sure, Brendan Small.
00:56:44Guest:And the two of them concocted, well, they developed this relationship where they loved being with each other, and Brendan was very musical.
00:56:52Guest:And I stayed the hell away from it.
00:56:56Guest:And, of course, I heard Lauren say on this very podcast that he's never done a show without John Benjamin, and why would he?
00:57:04Guest:Yeah, yeah.
00:57:05Guest:I agree.
00:57:06Guest:Yeah, he's a funny guy.
00:57:07Guest:yeah yeah he's uh unusually gifted in a booth yeah yeah and what what determines that i mean well i think uh i don't i get people pissed off who love improv when i talk about improv because i think i overstate it but
00:57:22Guest:Ben doesn't really do improv.
00:57:24Guest:He does, like, ruthless attack conversation.
00:57:29Guest:But it's just funny enough, and it leaves just enough room for the other guy.
00:57:32Marc:Yeah, you never want to be in the sights of either him or Cedar when they're pranking or...
00:57:38Guest:When I did that, your show with John Benjamin, essentially he interrupted me for a half hour.
00:57:43Guest:Yeah.
00:57:43Guest:And that's what he does.
00:57:44Guest:He does it so well.
00:57:46Guest:Yeah.
00:57:47Guest:Yeah.
00:57:48Guest:But obviously I'm taking nothing away from him because he's a miracle.
00:57:52Guest:And he was the guy who could get John Katz to laugh because John made a point of never laughing at anybody.
00:57:58Guest:Yeah.
00:57:59Guest:Comedians, anything.
00:58:00Guest:Yeah.
00:58:01Marc:It makes it difficult to like him.
00:58:02Guest:And in the booth, John started laughing, and Lauren and I were trying to figure out how to get it out, and we realized, ah, let's keep it.
00:58:11Guest:It's historic.
00:58:13Guest:Yeah, we left in the laughter, and we had this very, not unlike now, conversational pace.
00:58:18Marc:well i got one laugh out of him and i'll remember it on the uh tombstone i that was a genuine john katz it's on it happened and that was a good joke i've been trying to get it for a long time you know and then it happened here yeah for me it's a big deal today or just now yeah about five minutes ago yeah he he actually couldn't stifle his laughter
00:58:38Guest:whatever filter he has in place to to not let on that he's enjoying oh the are we good yeah yeah that was great yeah don't you say to people i mean what if you could don't laugh if you can help it no no i i and i don't say that oh because i would never want is that how you opened your shows
00:58:57Guest:I would say hold your laughter, please.
00:58:59Guest:Till the end.
00:59:00Guest:Yeah.
00:59:00Guest:No, I wouldn't want anyone to laugh at anything I said if they could possibly control their desire to laugh.
00:59:08Marc:That's interesting that you picked the profession that you did.
00:59:11Guest:Yeah, because I don't want... I mean, my daughters have been giving me courtesy laughs for years.
00:59:17Marc:You don't want courtesy laughs.
00:59:18Guest:I don't want courtesy laughs.
00:59:19Guest:I want somebody to laugh because they can't help it.
00:59:21Marc:But haven't you ever bombed?
00:59:22Marc:Yeah.
00:59:22Marc:Yeah, so there you go.
00:59:23Marc:How'd that feel?
00:59:25Marc:Terrible.
00:59:25Marc:Okay, so maybe you should encourage occasional courtesy laughter if necessary.
00:59:30Guest:I can't work that way.
00:59:32Guest:I'm sorry.
00:59:33Marc:You don't know the difference.
00:59:34Marc:My point is that if you have bombed, then they're not giving you courtesy after.
00:59:38Marc:So you're not a guy that's going to get courtesy after.
00:59:42Marc:Right.
00:59:42Marc:Oh, I see what you mean.
00:59:44Marc:You know what I mean?
00:59:44Marc:They're not going to indulge you that much.
00:59:46Marc:When they don't like you, they don't like you.
00:59:49Marc:Right.
00:59:49Marc:All right.
00:59:49Marc:So let's talk about the explosion bus.
00:59:52Marc:Yeah.
00:59:53Marc:That seems like there's another device there that sounds exciting and interesting.
00:59:56Marc:Yeah.
00:59:56Guest:Yeah.
00:59:57Guest:Well, for me, the cool thing is it's like John and I 25 years ago.
01:00:01Guest:We're doing exactly the same thing.
01:00:03Guest:Dr. Katz was done in my house, and I'm in the same house, and it's on the same floor.
01:00:09Guest:And so we can – all the production's done there, all the animation's done there.
01:00:13Guest:In your house.
01:00:14Guest:In our house.
01:00:15Guest:And we would – You guys live together now?
01:00:17Guest:No.
01:00:18Guest:But we would record at my place like we used to, but it's more convenient for John if we come over and bring everybody there.
01:00:26Guest:So once a month, we bring in the actors with our five scripts.
01:00:31Guest:And I wanted to ask you about this, but we're doing five-minute episodes for the web.
01:00:36Guest:Mm-hmm.
01:00:36Guest:And I'm wondering if that's the right length.
01:00:38Guest:But before we get into that, we're very lucky to have this guy, Tom Leopold.
01:00:43Guest:Are you familiar with his work at all?
01:00:45Marc:I feel like I know his name.
01:00:47Marc:That might be Leopold and Loeb.
01:00:49Guest:He wrote on Seinfeld.
01:00:52Marc:Okay.
01:00:52Guest:He wrote on...
01:00:55Guest:a lot of shows since Seinfeld, but he also wrote in Cheers.
01:00:58Guest:He's a veteran.
01:01:00Guest:And was a child actor in a show called Gunsmoke, which you're not old enough to remember.
01:01:04Guest:Arnaz.
01:01:06Guest:James Arnaz.
01:01:07Guest:But I first heard him, he's Harry Shearer's sort of go-to guy on the radio when they're doing faked up conversations.
01:01:15Guest:On the show?
01:01:16Guest:Yeah.
01:01:17Guest:And I heard him there.
01:01:19Guest:So you got him?
01:01:20Guest:Got him.
01:01:21Guest:He's just fantastic.
01:01:22Guest:Who else is involved?
01:01:23Guest:Well, we've had people on the show just as friends that aren't regulars like B.J.
01:01:31Guest:Novak.
01:01:32Guest:And who else?
01:01:34Guest:Bill Nacy.
01:01:34Marc:Yeah.
01:01:35Marc:Oh, really?
01:01:36Marc:B.J.
01:01:37Marc:Novak seems to slowly be infiltrating all media.
01:01:39Marc:He should.
01:01:40Guest:Yeah, he's very good.
01:01:43Guest:And then we're just using local comedians and talent.
01:01:48Guest:Like who?
01:01:48Guest:Sketch actors from Improv Boston.
01:01:50Guest:Oh, okay.
01:01:51Guest:A woman named Mish Whitaker, Megan Galterman.
01:01:54Guest:Matt D. I don't know if you know.
01:01:56Guest:I don't know these guys.
01:01:56Guest:See, these are kids that are just coming up.
01:01:58Guest:New generation.
01:01:58Guest:Yeah.
01:01:59Marc:I mean, really young.
01:02:00Marc:So, what is the angle?
01:02:02Marc:What is the show?
01:02:04Marc:What is it?
01:02:05Marc:It's two pathetic guys.
01:02:07Guest:That would be Jonathan.
01:02:09Guest:Right.
01:02:09Guest:And Tom Leopold.
01:02:10Guest:And Tom Leopold.
01:02:11Guest:Okay, yeah.
01:02:12Guest:And delusional.
01:02:13Guest:Yeah, and what's your delusion?
01:02:15Guest:That we are convinced, and we don't have any of the tools to believe this, that we're going to put the fictitious version of America's Got Talent out of business.
01:02:27Guest:And we're going to do it because we already have a bus.
01:02:31Guest:Right.
01:02:32Guest:And we tend to hire attractive women who know how to drive a stick shift.
01:02:38Guest:And they go around the country auditioning people and putting it up on their little website.
01:02:43Guest:That's the fiction.
01:02:44Marc:Right.
01:02:44Marc:I get it.
01:02:45Marc:So they're like the fictional version of America Got Talent.
01:02:48Marc:What's the name of that on the show?
01:02:50Guest:monster town monster town okay and we have a british guy who's an asshole who is the bad guy right and so they're like this is our nemesis we can do this better we have a bus we're going to go cross country we're going to audition people but sort of like 30 rock which is supposed to be about you know a saturday night live like show you don't really ever see any of that it's just like all the shit that happens in the office
01:03:12Marc:But isn't there some sort of fan engagement or talent engagement where you're soliciting these audition tapes?
01:03:20Guest:Yeah.
01:03:21Marc:And then you animate them.
01:03:22Guest:Yeah.
01:03:23Guest:So it's made for the Internet, definitely.
01:03:26Guest:Well, the audition tapes are just YouTube videos.
01:03:30Guest:That people send us.
01:03:31Guest:They're not animated.
01:03:33Guest:The animated part are the characters on the show.
01:03:37Guest:Although, if someone gets chosen because they're a particularly good audition, then we animate their thing.
01:03:43Guest:That's true.
01:03:43Guest:That's kind of the reward for people to send it in.
01:03:45Marc:This is all an internet thing.
01:03:46Guest:It's all internet, explosionbus.com, and on YouTube, Explosion Bus, or Facebook, et cetera.
01:03:53Guest:But my question is... What's happening out there?
01:03:58Guest:Is it my foot going like this?
01:04:01Guest:No, it's an outdoor sound.
01:04:03Marc:It's okay.
01:04:06Guest:We're coming in for landing.
01:04:07Guest:You don't know any Dutch people?
01:04:11Guest:No.
01:04:11Guest:Is there a Dutchman out there?
01:04:12Guest:I think they're clog dancing.
01:04:16Marc:No, he's building the fence.
01:04:17Marc:Oh, okay.
01:04:18Marc:It's fence building time.
01:04:20Marc:Oh, that's what you were hearing.
01:04:21Marc:Now I hear it.
01:04:22Marc:Do you want me to go stop him?
01:04:24Marc:No, we go through this sometimes.
01:04:25Marc:He actually suggested that I put an on-the-air light on my garage.
01:04:28Guest:Oh, that's a good idea.
01:04:29Marc:It actually is a good idea.
01:04:31Marc:But we're almost done.
01:04:33Guest:That's what you think.
01:04:35Marc:No idea, Mark.
01:04:36Marc:Is this just starting?
01:04:37Marc:So what were you going to ask me about the internet?
01:04:40Guest:Oh, so... Like, I know.
01:04:42Guest:I don't know.
01:04:42Guest:No, but you... We started making 18-minute episodes, and people convinced no one's going to look at their computer for 18 minutes.
01:04:51Marc:That seems to be the... Like, I don't know what's happening.
01:04:54Marc:I mean, everybody is trying to get people to watch things longer.
01:04:57Marc:I think that if people are seeking out your show...
01:05:01Marc:They will watch it for as long as necessary.
01:05:03Marc:I think that the idea that people only spend a short amount of time watching things on the internet is based on the viral... Myth?
01:05:11Marc:No, it's based on the viral video concept that things that are forwarded to people, whether it's a kitten or a kid or someone throwing up or falling off something, are usually short and they're forwarded around and that's how things get a lot of views because people are like, that's hilarious, that cat fell off the thing and it didn't die.
01:05:29Marc:but i think that the transition that's happening or wants to happen or people who are in charge of such things would like people to uh i think that when people choose to watch something that that is content that they will watch it for as long as that content was speaking i saw a text i got a text from someone about a podcast of yours and i had the link and it's and it was like
01:05:54Guest:great now i have to spend the next fucking hour and a half you know but he said it's great you have to watch right you know listen to it yeah yeah but it's it's amazing you can we were told you can't send a link to anybody that's more than just a couple minutes maybe it's the watching versus the listening i
01:06:11Marc:Well, I don't know if you can, I think sending the file might be.
01:06:14Guest:Not the file, the link.
01:06:15Guest:Because you could listen to your podcast anywhere in the car while you're driving.
01:06:20Guest:Right, but you've got to sit and watch this.
01:06:21Guest:You've got to sit and watch it, and it's that lean forward, lean back thing.
01:06:24Marc:People can put it on their things.
01:06:26Marc:I don't know.
01:06:27Marc:Maybe you should break each 18 minutes into three, five.
01:06:31Guest:We did.
01:06:32Guest:So that's where we are now.
01:06:33Guest:They're five-minute episodes.
01:06:34Marc:And then maybe people will be like, I wonder what's going to happen next.
01:06:37Guest:It is story-driven and character-driven.
01:06:40Guest:But have you ever had Scott Carter on the podcast?
01:06:43Guest:Yes.
01:06:44Guest:Oh, good.
01:06:44Guest:Early on, I had him on.
01:06:46Guest:That's an interesting guy.
01:06:47Guest:I will tell you one thing about Scott Carter, which is, like Bill Broaddus, he has two Asian kids that are adopted.
01:06:56Guest:So every time I talk to Scott, I always say, oh, Bill Broaddus says hi.
01:06:59Guest:Yeah.
01:07:00Guest:And he has no idea who Bill Broaddus is.
01:07:01Guest:Yeah.
01:07:02Guest:Isn't that interesting?
01:07:03Guest:Yeah.
01:07:03Guest:Yeah.
01:07:03Guest:And how many kids do you have?
01:07:05Guest:Two beautiful kids, a couple of kids.
01:07:07Guest:That's so attractive.
01:07:07Guest:Yeah.
01:07:08Guest:Four.
01:07:08Guest:Good for you.
01:07:09Guest:I have two daughters and a granddaughter.
01:07:12Guest:I'm not saying that I married an old woman.
01:07:16Guest:But she does live in a shoe.
01:07:18Marc:How many kids do you got?
01:07:20Marc:I got two.
01:07:21Marc:And they're grown.
01:07:21Marc:Yeah.
01:07:22Marc:It's weird, because we were all sitting in the... I was playing the Beatles box.
01:07:25Marc:Right.
01:07:26Marc:And there was this moment where... Because you guys are a little older than me.
01:07:28Marc:Yeah.
01:07:29Marc:And I actually had this... Like, I came to the Beatles... Like, 1969, I was six.
01:07:34Marc:1969, you were functioning.
01:07:36Marc:I was 19.
01:07:37Marc:Right.
01:07:38Marc:So, like, there was that moment where I got the Beatles box, and I came to them late because I was too young, really.
01:07:43Marc:But when I put Sgt.
01:07:44Marc:Pepper's on for you, you were, like, transported to a very memorable period of your life.
01:07:50Marc:Yeah.
01:07:51Marc:Yeah.
01:07:51Marc:And I could see it.
01:07:52Marc:There was an excitement there, and I was glad that I had that.
01:07:56Guest:What record would that be for you?
01:07:58Guest:You know, a younger... I mean... Well, obviously, when I was a kid, I got those records.
01:08:04Marc:But I have no recollection of what the cultural landscape was when they were introduced to the world.
01:08:09Marc:So I have to assume that somebody was 19 or 18 when Sgt.
01:08:13Marc:Pepper's come out.
01:08:14Marc:You have some sort of...
01:08:15Guest:point of reference where your mind must have been fucking blown with the rest of the world whereas mine was already sort of like yeah this came out before you but these guys my question is if let's say in 15 10 years 15 years right younger kid you go you're getting interviewed yeah he says i just got the box set of oh what would it be and he's watching you and he's going fuck you just you went to a different place what album would he pull out of that
01:08:40Marc:Well, oddly, they're similar records because, like, I, you know, my generation, I'm 49, so most of what we got was still the wave crashing from you guys.
01:08:50Marc:Right.
01:08:51Marc:You know, so, like, you know, radio and, you know, because they went into that horrible disco period in the mid-'70s, which nobody could get on board with, and then, you know, punk and new wave sort of came out.
01:09:02Marc:So, like...
01:09:03Marc:I think I started buying new records somewhere in the late 70s.
01:09:08Marc:Right.
01:09:09Marc:Like Elvis Costello's first record or some other stuff.
01:09:12Marc:Carpenters.
01:09:13Marc:Yeah, no, I miss that.
01:09:14Marc:But I had my parents' records and I had your records.
01:09:16Marc:But I think that wave of your music is still sort of crashing.
01:09:19Marc:I mean, you listen to classic hits.
01:09:21Marc:Tom Petty, I remember buying the first Tom Petty record, which was a pretty big moment.
01:09:26Guest:When I was at Goddard College, there was one day when I got out of my dorm, which I didn't often do.
01:09:33Guest:I went outside and coming out of every room on the entire campus was, good day sunshine.
01:09:40Marc:It was amazing, right?
01:09:41Marc:Yeah.
01:09:42Marc:Like I remember in high school, the parking lot when Van Halen 1 came out.
01:09:47Marc:that was fucking everywhere like you know that that guitar solo from eruption was it just it changed the face of everything i remember it again in new york in the 90s when i was a grown or a more grown-up person when the first nirvana album came out same thing it was every everywhere you walked in it was like what is this
01:10:03Guest:Velvet Underground had a similar impact on me.
01:10:08Marc:Yeah, they were great.
01:10:09Marc:I listen to them almost weekly.
01:10:11Marc:Sweet Jane.
01:10:12Marc:Sweet Jane.
01:10:14Marc:I'm very upset that I can't find my Live in 69 double album.
01:10:17Marc:I don't know what happened to it.
01:10:19Marc:We'll look after.
01:10:20Guest:Okay.
01:10:21Guest:Well, I want you to look on the second hairiest man you've ever interviewed in this garage.
01:10:28Guest:I don't see that.
01:10:28Guest:So it's all beneath the clothing.
01:10:31Guest:Yeah.
01:10:31Guest:I believe you.
01:10:32Marc:Do you know who the first was?
01:10:33Marc:Who?
01:10:33Marc:Robin.
01:10:34Marc:Yeah, he's got hair all over the place.
01:10:36Marc:Yeah, I mean, he didn't show me, but I know.
01:10:38Marc:Because you can actually see where he shaves.
01:10:40Guest:You know, I toured with him.
01:10:42Guest:I was his musical director for a year until his management said, Robin, you're not a singer.
01:10:49Marc:Were you really?
01:10:50Guest:Yeah, I was.
01:10:52Guest:Are you guys still friends?
01:10:54Guest:We're friends mostly through his ex-wife, who was my ex-girlfriend.
01:10:57Guest:Is that true?
01:10:57Guest:Yeah, Valerie Velarde.
01:10:59Marc:No kidding?
01:11:00Marc:Yep.
01:11:00Marc:The mother of his children?
01:11:03Guest:The mother of his first two kids.
01:11:06Guest:And my daughter, Julia, played with his son, Zachary.
01:11:10Guest:And Robin was upset when Zachary tried on one of Julia's blouses.
01:11:14Marc:Oh.
01:11:15Marc:So what happened?
01:11:16Marc:How'd that end up?
01:11:18Guest:Valerie had to convince Robin that's not how boys become gay.
01:11:25Marc:Yeah.
01:11:26Marc:He was nervous.
01:11:26Marc:There we are again.
01:11:27Marc:Yeah.
01:11:28Marc:We're back.
01:11:28Marc:We've come full circle.
01:11:29Marc:Right.
01:11:30Marc:Because he should have known it was by buttoning the top button.
01:11:33Marc:That's right.
01:11:33Marc:You can wear a woman's blouse as long as you don't button the top button.
01:11:36Guest:Do you remember when young girls had training bras with wheels?
01:11:42Guest:No.
01:11:43Guest:All right.
01:11:44Guest:I'm out.
01:11:45Guest:I'm sorry.
01:11:47Guest:That's great.
01:11:48Marc:Thanks, fellas.
01:11:49Marc:So people can go to ExplosionBus.com and JonathanKatz.com to get up to speed.
01:11:55Marc:And I think you might want to think about releasing those two episodes of that, what is it?
01:11:59Marc:Giving Harry the Business.
01:12:00Marc:Giving Harry the Business.
01:12:01Marc:Will do.
01:12:02Marc:All right.
01:12:02Marc:Thanks, guys.
01:12:02Marc:Thank you, Mark.
01:12:08Marc:That's our show, people.
01:12:10Marc:I hope you dug it.
01:12:11Marc:I hope you're that was an interesting conversation.
01:12:13Marc:I really believe that was something I came away from from that conversation was that those guys were really sort of classic baby boomers.
01:12:20Marc:Like, you know, top of the top, you know, like I'm at the end of the baby boomer.
01:12:23Marc:They're at the beginning, I believe.
01:12:27Marc:And, you know, their points of reference were interesting.
01:12:31Marc:And, you know, go check out the new thing.
01:12:34Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod need.
01:12:37Marc:Get some merch.
01:12:37Marc:Get on the mailing list.
01:12:38Marc:Get the app.
01:12:39Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.
01:12:41Marc:Check out the Lipson deal that we got going over there.
01:12:45Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
01:12:47Marc:Check my dates.
01:12:48Marc:The tour is going to be announced next week.
01:12:49Marc:The Out of the Garage tour.
01:12:55Marc:I shouldn't have drank that fucking Red Bull.
01:12:56Marc:I never drink them.
01:12:58Marc:I never drink them.
01:12:59Marc:Boomer lives!

Episode 347 - Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder

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